Dry Run
by Vallygirl
Summary: Thanksgiving story, Megan asks for Mike's help
1. Chapter 1

Title: Dry Run

Couple: Det. Mike Logan and Det. Megan Wheeler

Summary: Megan asks Mike for his help.

Spoilers: None really, it takes place during Season Six when Wheeler and Logan were first partners.

Disclaimer: Nope don't own L&O: CI or the characters from the show. I'm just taking them out for a little spin is all.

Author's Note: Thank you Diane for beta reading this story for me.

***

"Good work you two on the Murphy case. Enjoy the rest of the weekend," Danny Ross said to Detective Wheeler and Detective Logan as he walked passed their desks.

Logan nodded as he continued to fill out the form in front of him while Wheeler gave her boss a polite smile and called out, "Thank you, sir."

"'Thank you, sir,'" Mike mimicked earning him a glare from his partner. He snickered before putting the form he had been working on inside a case folder and turned off the lamp on his desk. "Well that is the end of the paperwork. I'm out of here, Wheeler. See you on Monday."

Megan watched as her partner stood up and knew she had to ask him now before she lost her nerve. "So, Logan, what are you up to tomorrow?"

Shrugging his shoulders as he slipped on his raincoat, he replied, "Nothing really. Sleeping and then watching the games… drink some beer… order pizza. Why?"

"Well I was wondering if you would want to come over for dinner tomorrow?" she asked as she looked up at her partner.

"Dinner?" he repeated.

"Yes dinner," she confirmed.

"At your place?" he asked.

"Yes at my place," she replied.

"With you?" he quizzed.

"No, with my neighbor Mrs. Stanley," Megan huffed in annoyance.

"Why?" he asked.

Megan tilted her head slightly as she smiled up at Logan. "Well, we've been partnered for almost two months and I thought it would be nice to have you over for dinner."

Mike stared into his partner's eyes for a few seconds before snorting in amusement. "You know, I almost bought that. Now tell me why you suddenly want to spend your Sunday night with me or I'm out of here."

"Fine," she snapped as she rolled her eyes. "I got annoyed last weekend at my aunt's house when my cousin Jennifer started in on her martyr routine about having to host all the holiday gatherings. I usually can ignore her but when she said quote, 'too bad we don't want to have pizza and beer for a family dinner then Megan could have everyone over' unquote, I heard myself saying I'd have them over for Thanksgiving this year."

"Alright but what's that have to do with me coming over tomorrow for dinner?" he asked.

Blushing slightly, she confessed, "I've never actually cooked a turkey before and figured I should do a dry run first but I wanted somebody unbiased who likes to eat but who wouldn't be afraid of hurting my feelings and who'd also tell me if things sucked to act as a taste tester."

"You've never cooked a turkey and you thought Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to try this out? What if you give me food poisoning?" he demanded.

"You're not going to get food poisoning," she said as she stood up. "Come on, Logan, are you in or out? There'll be pies."

"What kind?" he asked.

"Pumpkin, apple and cherry," she told him.

Logan stared in Wheeler's eyes as he continued his line of questioning. "Whip cream or ice cream?"

Wheeler did her best to stare down her partner before hissing, "Both."

"Sure, what the Hell," he finally said as he gave her a grin. "What time do you want me there?"

Megan let out the breath she had been holding. "Well there are a few good games on tomorrow, come over early and we can watch them while I cook."

"Don't you think you should concentrate on the cooking instead of the games?" he reasoned.

Wheeler rolled her eyes. "Seriously, how hard can it be? You stick the bird in the oven for a few hours. That should give me plenty of time to watch the games."

"If you say so, I'll see you tomorrow around one in the afternoon," Mike said as he started to leave.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

A frazzled Wheeler opened the door to her grinning partner. "Hey."

"Hey, I brought wine for dinner and a twelve pack for the games," he told her as he held up each for inspection.

"Come in, come in," Wheeler said as she waved her hand frantically.

Logan followed her inside and into the kitchen where he placed the wine on the counter and the beer in the fridge, grabbing one for each of them. Popping the tops, he went to hand Wheeler hers but stopped when he spotted something in her hair. Leaning forward, he tilted his head to get a better look.

Wheeler jumped slightly as Logan leaned in as if he was going to give her a kiss on the cheek. "What are you doing?"

Pointing with the beer in his hand, he asked, "Is that stuffing in your hair?"

"What?!" Wheeler cried as she reached up and extracted several chunks of stuffing from her hair. "I had an accident earlier," she confessed.

"An accident?" Logan repeated questioningly.

Blushing slightly, Wheeler explained. "I was peeling a potato and it kinda slipped out of my hand and shot across the counter, landing on the handle of the spoon that was in the stuffing which then caused the spoon to come flying out of the bowl where it landed next to me. I guess some of the stuffing that was on the spoon ended up in my hair."

Logan couldn't contain the grin that broke out on his face as he listened to his partner. "What did you do, take classes at The Culinary School of The Three Stooges?" he teased.

"Funny," she huffed as she pushed past him. "I'm going to get cleaned up. Would you mind tasting the potatoes for me?"

Mike put his beer down as he opened a few drawers until he found Wheeler's silverware and grabbed a spoon. Lifting the cover to the pan, he scooped up a large portion onto his spoon and shoveled it into his mouth. It only took a second before he began to feel the spicy heat from some unknown ingredient invade his palate.

His eyes widened in shock as he hurried over to the sink and spat out the potatoes. Running the cold water, he didn't even bother with a glass as he turned his head slightly and began to drink frantically. Wheeler stopped in her tracks when she saw her partner drinking straight from the faucet.

"Logan, what are you doing?" she cried. She watched in horror as Logan grabbed the beer he had put down seconds earlier and actually gargled with it.

Mike finally turned his attention back to his hostess. "What the hell did you put in those potatoes?"

Megan actually chewed on her bottom lip as she answered him. "I thought I would try something different and I found a recipe online for mash potatoes with horseradish."

"Horseradish!" he exclaimed. "How much did you use?"

"What the recipe called for, four tablespoons for every two pounds of potatoes," she told him as she grabbed the slip of paper off the counter. "Maybe I shouldn't have grated fresh horseradish, they say it's stronger."

"Let me see that," he said as he took the paper from his partner. Sighing, he began to wonder if agreeing to this meal was a huge mistake as he explained what she had done wrong. "Wheeler, TSP is for a teaspoon, TBSP is for a tablespoon. You were only supposed to put in four teaspoons of horseradish."

"Oh," Megan replied disappointedly as she took back the recipe. "Maybe if I boil more potatoes that might help," she suggested.

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes. "Do you really want to hear the truth today?"

"That's why I invited you."

"Stick with traditional potatoes… milk, butter, salt and pepper. Mashed potatoes with horseradish doesn't exactly scream Thanksgiving," he suggested.

"I guess," she agreed as she frowned at the potatoes. "I'll throw these out and start new ones."

"Nah, you've got stuffing and from what I saw in your hair it looked alright," Mike reassured her.

"Ha-ha," Megan huffed as she picked up the pan and put it in the sink.

Mike started to walk out of the kitchen but stopped when he thought he smelled plastic burning. "Do you smell that?" he asked.

"Oh that, I had the window open earlier and unfortunately it's above the dumpster in the ally," she explained.

"Must be fun in the summer," Mike replied as he headed into the adjacent living room and turned on the TV. "The Colts and Cowboys game starts in five minute and I have a hundred on the Cowboys."

"I just need to put on the carrots and I'll be right in there," She called out before adding, "I can't believe you betted against the Colts… you really are a glutton for punishment, Logan, aren't you?"

***

Four hours and three more food disasters later, Mike Logan would have to agree he was a glutton for punishment.

First, during the third quarter of the game, he had to put out the fire that started when the carrots Wheeler had put on at the beginning of the game (and that she had forgotten about) had somehow caught on fire after all the water in the pan had boiled away.

Then Wheeler had taken the bird out of the oven and decided to make her own gravy. He actually forced himself to join her when she called out and asked if he thought three cups of flour was too much to thicken the gravy. Logan could only shake his head as he tried to stir it. The damn thing looked like concrete. He thought he was being pretty tactful when he suggested she use jar gravy.

But the bird… the bird was the worst because it actually looked pretty good sitting on the platter. That changed drastically when Wheeler began to scoop out the stuffing and Logan spotted the real reason behind the smell of burning plastic from earlier.

"What the hell is that?" Wheeler asked as she looked at the foreign object that she had just scooped out along with her stuffing.

"You didn't clean the turkey before you stuffed it?" Logan asked as he looked at the melted plastic bag clinging to the contents inside of it.

"The turkey was clean when I got it," she insisted.

"Yeah but you still need to remove the bag," he explained.

Using the spoon, Wheeler lifted the bag and winced as the stringy goo of plastic stretched as she went. "Why the hell is there a plastic bag inside my damn turkey?" she cried in frustration.

"Because people use the stuff inside the bag to make stock," he told her.

She turned around to face her partner. "So let me get this straight. I managed to get attacked by a spoon covered with stuffing, made mash potatoes that were so disgusting that you actually gargled with beer, somehow I managed to start a fire with carrots, if you were building a brick wall my gravy could be used as mortar and my turkey could actually cause toxic poisoning if we eat it."

"The pies look good," Logan said as he tried to cheer Wheeler up.

"They're from a bakery," she hissed as she stomped past him.

"Look, the Giants game is going to start in a half an hour. Why don't we just toss all this stuff out and order a pizza because I have to tell you I'm friggin' hungry." He regretted the suggestion the second he saw the look on Wheeler's face.

Wheeler's face crumbled as she cried. "Of course I can order pizza since that's all I know how to really do anyways."

Logan winced as he watched his partner cry. He could take a woman crying over losing a loved one but crying over hosting some stupid holiday dinner he didn't know how to handle. He allowed her to carry on for about thirty seconds before he reached over grabbed her portable phone and thrust it towards her. "Call your cousin and tell her you're not having the dinner here and that she is going to have to have it at her place."

"And what, tell her she was right all along?" Megan wailed miserably.

Mike grinned as he explained. "No, you're going to tell her we caught a high profile case and that all time off has been put on hold, even for Thanksgiving until the case is solved, which won't happen anytime before Saturday from what I can tell."

"Oh great, so I get to spend Thanksgiving by myself. Maybe I can have some leftover toxic turkey," she huffed as she took the paper towel Mike offered her and blew her nose.

"No," he told her gently. "You'll have Thanksgiving with me at Phil and Elaine's. They'll love you, especially Elaine. She'll take one look at you, declare that you're too skinny and will make you eat at least one bowl of her minestrone soup before you get your coat off."

Sniffling, Megan couldn't help smiling up at the man next to her. "You would do that… for me?" she asked in wonderment

Shrugging his shoulders, he said, "We're partners. We've got to have each other backs at all times especially when it comes to our relatives."

She nodded her head in understanding as she leaned over and opened a drawer next to her refrigerator, pulling out a piece of paper that she handed to Logan. "Just no anchovies and get an order of large chili cheese fries too."

Megan watched as Mike went into the other room to call in their food order as she called her cousin. Ross had told her that she could learn from him when they were first partnered, that he was a great cop and there was no denying that he was a great cop but today she realized there was more to her partner than that. Today Megan Wheeler realized that Mike Logan was more than just a cop, just her partner. She realized that he was a good man and even more importantly a good friend she could count on.

The End


End file.
